Ben Affleck really didn’t want people to know that one of his distant ancestors owned slaves—going so far as to lobby celebrity genealogy TV show Finding Your Roots to suppress the segment in which that ancestor is discussed. But we got our hands on a copy of the script—and now you can read the mild interview that… »4/23/15 9:46am 4/23/15 9:46am

ESPN is aggressively promoting League of Denial, the new book by ESPN reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru on the NFL's concussion crisis, today. There's an excerpt of the book published on ESPN.com. There's a lot of space dedicated to it on the site's front page. There's a story about the book. The brothers… »10/02/13 3:16pm 10/02/13 3:16pm

So why did ESPN end its relationship with Frontline less than two months before their co-reported, two-part documentary on the NFL and concussions was set to air? We know that ESPN president John Skipper found the trailer for Frontline's documentary to be "sensational" and "over the top." We know that Skipper had a…»8/29/13 4:19pm 8/29/13 4:19pm

"We're not in the business of antagonizing our partner," the ESPN executive told the New York Times, defending the network's sudden withdrawal of support for a program that made the NFL look bad. This wasn't last week. This was nine years ago. »8/28/13 3:44pm 8/28/13 3:44pm

The players' union finds itself in an awkward situation in the wake of a report that the NFL pressured ESPN to back out of an upcoming documentary on player safety. Because, after all, the NFLPA is ESPN's broadcast partner too—the players get 55 percent of TV money. Now a union spokesperson says the players will have… »8/23/13 12:11pm 8/23/13 12:11pm

When word broke that ESPN was unexpectedly and belatedly ending its involvement with PBS's Frontline on a pair of documentaries investigating head injuries in football, ESPN swore up and down it had nothing to do with keeping the NFL happy. According to a report in today's New York Times,that was a bold-faced lie. »8/23/13 8:46am 8/23/13 8:46am

For a while now, ESPN's big alibi, the thing Bristol would trot out any time someone questioned the company's journalistic bona fides, was its joint investigation into NFL head injuries with PBS's Frontline. Now that's done with. PBS announced the news. It reports: »8/22/13 5:50pm 8/22/13 5:50pm